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Shutdown is all about Trump in 2020

Jeff Benziger

Managing editor

Updated:
Jan. 16, 2019, 9:37 a.m.

Let’s be honest: This so-called government “shutdown” is about denying Trump another term in office. The Democrats would rather throw the country’s security under the bus if it means Trump is alienated from his base.

How else can you explain that Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama all railed against illegal immigration and supported wall funding in years past? Back in 2013, Pelosi supported a bill that required the construction of 700 miles of border fencing.

Trump was elected because Americans are fed up with illegal immigration flooding our land. Democrats are opposed to a wall strictly because it allows Trump to deliver yet another promise that enables him to be re-elected in 2020 re-election.

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Josh Harder doesn’t miss a beat, falling right into Pelosi’s mold and blaming Trump instead of his own party for the shutdown. Let’s get this right. The $5.7 billion requested by Trump for the wall along the border is a mere 0.0998 percent of the federal budget. The same Congress just voted to send twice that amount to Central America and Southern Mexico.

Harder is already raising funds for the 2020 election because he knows Ted Howze is out to get him. He sent out a fundraising email warning that “extremists” were coming after his job. Yeah and denying U.S. citizens the security we need isn’t an extremist position?

We know Joshie would vote no on the wall which means he’s the extremist of who we need to be careful.

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I’ll never forget Kim Coffey in the fourth grade.

Nell Spencer was my teacher in Oakdale and completely lost control of her class. The kids, mostly rotten to the core, had her completely frazzled. She barked a lot in an attempt to gain control but never backed it up with action. The class knew they could push her and nothing would happen.

I was raised better than that. I respected authority and felt sorry for her. I didn’t gave Mrs. Spencer trouble. Kim didn’t either until the end of the school year when she finally succumbed to the peer pressure and gave the old lady hell. She got laughter for her defiance, for bucking the frail soon-to-be-retiring teacher. Kim greatly disappointed me – and crushed Mrs. Spencer. I think her will to teach was broken.

Why do I bring up Kim Coffey? Because in a way she represents how people can dogpile on someone in a movement of frenzy. We’re seeing that today with Trump Derangement Syndrome. Hollywood has made it sport to blast Trump. The national media is doing everything in its power to portray this conservative as a lunatic, a rich man who’s gone mad not because he is those things but because they are opposed to his agenda.

My own son has got one of the worst cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Bret is a good kid, but he’s been immersed in the far left of the liberal establishment at UC Davis where he works. You know he’s incurable when he posts this silly nonsense: “I truly wish we had starships so I could leave this stupid earth and go explore beautiful planets. There wouldn’t be any Trumps there…”

I didn’t like Obama and I expressed that. But I never displayed this inexplicable type of insanity. The obsession to destroy our president reminds me of the same mania, the same force that made people commit suicide in the new Netflix movie, “The Bird Box.”

Could you ever have imagined, 20 years ago, a governor of California saying that closing off the southern border was “irresponsible, irrational and absurd”? If that’s the case, Newsom should immediately take down the fence around the governor’s mansion because it’s an example of what’s “irresponsible, irrational and absurd.” And since he’s anti-gun, let him get rid of the guns carried by the CHP who guard him. After all, he should practice what he preaches.

Attacking the president in such a ludicrous way is a bizarre start for the man who just uttered: “I intend to represent all Californians, not only those who voted for me.” I didn’t vote for Newsom and yet he insults me greatly while telling me he wants to represent me? What supreme arrogance.

It’s sad that California has found itself with yet another governor who makes Pat Brown look like a card-carrying conservative.

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If I were a city official, I’d be very scared of Gavin Newsom. His hypocrisy is rich. The state of California has thumbed its nose at the Trump administration in most every respect – mainly immigration laws and passing sanctuary state laws. In response the president wants to withhold emergency funds from California. It seems fair, after all, that if a state is going to reject federal law it certainly isn’t entitled to any of its money. Gov. Newsom is now screaming bloody murder. How is that any different from the state of California and Governor Newsom threatening to withhold funds from cities which do not build their “fair” share of affordable housing units?

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Oh my lord. Drinking water crisis in California? In 2019?

Jonathan Nelson from this bureaucratic agency called Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund Coalition suggested last week that in 2019 California has a crisis of one million people “without access to safe, affordable drinking water.”

Wait. Didn’t we have Gov. Jerry Brown in office for eight years? He let this “human rights crisis threaten people in every region of our state”?

Never fear, Tax-and-Spend Newsom is here with all kinds of new taxes and new spending for us to pay for.

I warned you folks about Newsom. It’s just too bad that only those who voted for him get to pay the price while those of us who voted John Cox escape Newsom’s wrath.

* * * * *

Uh-oh.

Tom Berryhill didn’t show up to his own swearing-in ceremony.

We’ve heard rumors for a long time about the health of Berryhill, who is a Ceres High graduate. If you remember, he received a heart transplant in 2001 and it even became a campaign issue when he was running for the state Legislature. Now the newest county supervisor is a no-show.

It would be refreshing if Berryhill just stepped down if he truly is in the poor health many of us suspect he is in.

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Did you hear about the stupid teen who took a gun into a Popeye’s restaurant in San Antonio on Dec. 6 and pointed a gun at a customer’s children and demanded money? Andres Herrera, 19, was shot to death by the dad for he had a legal concealed weapon on him. The man was only defending his children.

Cynthia Ruiz, mother of said stupid boy complained to a KABB-TV station there that her son was shot five times, as if one shot to the chest would have been more acceptable to her.

I feel for her loss but honestly our world seems has been duped into this dangerous ideology that there should be zero consequences for people doing wrong – and robbing people at gunpoint is wrong.

“He made bad choices but that doesn’t define who he was,” Ruiz said on camera.

Unfortunately his bad choice is why he is no longer living. Quit blaming the victim and blame the stupidity of the criminal.

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You can’t find a more depraved type of person that the individuals who invaded a 61-year-old man’s Turlock house on Nov. 3 and beat him to death for his cell phone. Police have arrested three individuals, all in their 30s, for invading the home and the death of Edward Horton, 61.

What low-lifes.

This underscores the need for people to arm themselves to defend them for human debris such as this.

This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA. How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com